I live in Eckington. When I bought my place five years ago, my girlfriend was afraid to go get the mail. Now she goes on solo walks around the neighborhood, hangs out outside chatting with neighbors and feeding stray cats, etc... What I’m saying is it may take some time, but she’ll probably get more comfortable with the neighborhood as she interacts with more of the neighbors. It’s also good to have a presence so you’re not just silent, non participant targets for breakins and such.
That's basically what I said. Making friends with the neighbors is the best security system you can have. We basically left doors unlocked growing up at home because we knew there were always eyes on the house.
it's usually a few bad apples that cause 90% of the shit. I lived across from these shithead brothers at my first place in petworth that probably did 90% of the crime in a 10 block radius.
Well, she's a progressive and adds a progressive to a pretty centrist council. And she beat Brandon Todd, who is the heir to Bowser and runs using Bowser's machine. Heavy funding from developers and Devos charter school money. Whether she ends up being good for Ward 4 and DC in general is a question I can't answer. I've met her and she seems nice, but that doesn't mean anything. I've seen plenty of politicians in this city that start out promising but end up corrupt and/or poor leaders.
Are there protests going on around Union Station? Driving a friend there midday tomorrow, easy in and out or no?
Seems mostly like business as usual until later in the afternoon. Doubt you’ll have any issues midday.
Bowser is crushing it on the PR front. Remains to be seen whether any real action actually backs that up.
BLM is crushing her. Telling her to save the publicity stunts and defund the police and invest in the community
9 shot, one dead, a few blocks from my new place in North Columbia Heights/South Petworth today. 14th Street is really nuts right now. That stretch from Columbia up to Taylor or so can just be an absolute zoo on any given day.
Yeah, 5pm is kinda crazy. I don’t walk around at night anymore by my work, but’s mostly bc the amount of homeless and vagrants is getting out of hand by Chinatown.
that's not out of the ordinary. shootings in the middle of the afternoon in cohi happen regularly Edit: pretty brazen though, because there's almost always at least 1 cop car sitting at that intersection across from those restaurants there.
Yeah I'm not sure what else can be done. My neighbors who live about a block from there say the drug trafficking has gotten steadily worse over the past few months. Pretty clear the police know about it. We have a house across from our new place that I'm pretty sure is the center of some kind of illicit activity - There seem to be no less than 20 different people going in and out of there on any given week, frequently a crew of 4-5 hanging out on the sidewalk out front doing lots of "window exchanges" on the street outside. My general attitude is "whatever, they're not hurting anybody" but shit like this happens and makes me reconsider.
The cops know about all of the open markets, but, you know: I mean, that market at Quebec St behind Raymond Rec in Petworth has been there so long that it's a DC institution. It might as well be Ben's Chili or something
You think police are on the take? Come on, more than likely if it’s allowed to happen in such an open and known setup, it’s bc the police have been told to stand down.
Am I the only one not bothered by the metro scale back? As long as they return back to normal if/when normalcy returns I’m fine with it. Ridership is down by like 90%... no point in running empty trains
I would think the same but this is scheduled to go into place July 1 of next year, which would imply it’s a long term decision.
If so, then it’s probably a moot point. DC can’t function if that’s the service metro provides under normal conditions. If things get back to normal, they’ll change back.... they’ll be enough outrage from commuters to change this when it becomes a real problem.
Yeah, I still see this as a temp measure. When things come back to normal, assuming they do, metro will come as well. Not much interested in the topic now bc the commute from bed to table is easy. But give a couple million people worse commutes and some funds will get freed up after the bitching ans moaning becomes too loud.
Metro is in this position because Congress has failed to provide adequate relief to state and local governments to mitigate the effects of covid. What changes if Perdue and/or Loeffler win? DC Maryland and Virginia are facing multi-billion budget shortfalls, where are they getting $500 million from?
This was inevitable. They should enact this now. if things change in passengers and usage around spring/summer, then start to go back to old staffing/schedules/etc.
Nothing is going to change until the runoff. Democrats win and a deal is made, republicans win and a deal is made. Until then, don’t park where you shouldn’t and obey every traffic law.
I kind of tend to agree. July feels like too late, and just around the time things may be returning to a semblance of normalcy. Cut it all now to stop the bleeding and then gradually roll out reopening as things creep back to normal. The rigidity of the budget process doesn’t allow for that I’m guessing. Wondering if w00ds0n2 has any thoughts. He used to post a lot about similar matters in the ATL thread
Voice to text... sorry y’all... WMATA had turned it around over the last three years are so. They really found a new sense of stability. I actually think they were in a position to restore a lot of their late night and weekend service. It is too bad that the pandemic has ravaged ravaged through the transit industry like it has. The thing with WMATA is they are in a position where they need to lobby every year from multiple jurisdictions to fund their annual budget. They are very unique in the sense they do not have a dedicated local funding source. Adding complexity to that is they have members of Congress and other people riding their service (or at least watching it lol). Between the cares act funding and the funding they secured from their jurisdictions they were able to find this years budget dollars. I am quite confident that they are well aware their jurisdictions are broke and they are facing a huge budget shortfall of their own. They are undoubtedly going to need to cut service at the beginning of the next fiscal year which is what this is. looking forward who the fuck knows what normal is going to look like. Most transit agencies are reducing service now or in the near term with the understanding that they will restore service eventually but their service will likely look nothing like it did pre-pandemic. Their new normal so to speak. even early returns on cares act 2 money show agencies getting about 1/3 of what they need to balance their existing budgets. Call your legislative delegation! Oh wait...
Some post scripts... “We” are asking for a budget stop gap of $74B in federal support. Current language drafted has 1/3 of that. A new infrastructure bill can restore service quickly. Congress is as split as ever but this is the one bipartisan investment that they can agree on. Although this was really something that should have happened two years ago. I know a few of the Biden Transition members and this is where they are focusing (besides cleaning up some very wreckless policies from Cheeto) DOT Secretary and Transit Administration appointees are going to be huge transit supporters. We honestly haven’t had that in decades. Obama appointed LaHood who was a R(!) from BF IL.
Thought this article was really well written and a great summation of living in DC and putting up with the nonsense (including that cone on east cap).
Hello, friends. Quick question; It's been a dream of mine for a long time to live somewhere where I didn't have to have a car to survive. I also want be as close to home as possible. How realistic is it to go carless in DC?
Very doable as long as your workplace is metro accessible. I didn’t have a car for a couple years and didn’t really need one until I moved out of the inner suburbs (don’t do this, it’s dumb, and I’m already back in Arlington).
Very doable (though I always lived in the District and worked on top of a metro station or biked to work), really only used the car to do Costco runs and to come back to Michigan. Outside the beltway (or even some MD and VA places inside) would be much more challenging.
I use my car maybe once a week, like others said, for large grocery or hardware store runs or to take drivable trips out of town. It's absolutely doable supplemented by rentals once in a while if you really need one. Rentals are very accessible too. We currently have two cars (relics of times before we lived in DC) and are looking to move down to one.
Good to know. I read a lot of people online saying it was very doable, but I was a little worried those might just be like college kids or something.
I have a car and I move it every 2 months or so. I let a friend borrow it for a year and take it to Georgia. *I live and work on the red line edit: during pandemic I work at my kitchen table
Haven’t had a car since 2013. Metro to Arlington (pre pandemic) for work and live on green line in DC. Very doable I will say I wouldn’t want to metro to say Tyson’s from DC every day though.
yes - the city has become much more bike friendly in the last 5-10 years too and there is usually only snow on the ground a few days per year.
if you live or work within walking distance of the Silver Line - there’s a shitload of new accessible developments at McLean and Greensboro - it’s really not that bad. But if you have to then take some further form of transit, it’s not fun.
I just moved near the Petworth/GA Ave stop and am considering a job a block from Rosslyn. Is that similar to your commute? It seems miserable to me (14 stops and a line change, or taking yellow to the Pentagon and then doubling back on blue) but driving to Rosslyn seems equally miserable. My only other commutes have been direct on the metro or walking.
that is exactly my commute. It could def be better and also could be worse. Takes about 40-50 mins door to door. Usually switch at Gallery Place and Metro Center to hop on orange/silver